32 Pallbearers Needed for Woman’s Coffin
SINGAPORE — Thirty-two pallbearers were needed to carry a 91-year-old woman to her grave Wednesday in a 1,000-pound coffin she bought because she feared cremation.
Hwan Yung-choon bought the coffin in the 1950s.
“She ordered the coffin in advance because she was afraid that future generations might cremate her,” Chao Kok-hong, her 42-year-old grandson, said.
The coffin, made from three tree trunks, measured 8 feet by 4 feet.
A shortage of cemeteries in land-poor Singapore has caused an increasing number of cremations despite Chinese custom, which calls for burial.
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